Delvecchio remembered for playmaking ability, loyalty to Red Wings

Alex Delvecchio, who played his entire NHL career spanning 24 seasons for the Detroit Red Wings, vividly remembered the first car he bought with his first hockey paycheck, appropriately purchased in the Motor City.

“Two-hundred-something dollars,” Delvecchio recalled of the antique Ford roadster he purchased in the early 1950s, barely out of his teens. “I had to give it a little push and run beside it to get it going.”

Delvecchio was behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Silverado when he took a call on the 39th anniversary of his 1977 Hockey Hall of Fame induction.

“I don’t have to push it to get it started,” Delvecchio said with a laugh during a wide-ranging talk in 2016. “But it’s got all kinds of stuff in it that I’m still trying to figure out.”

Asked how he was making out with his mobile phone and Bluetooth, he was laughing again.

Alex Delvecchio darts between Maple Leafs goalie Johnny Bower and defenseman Allan Stanley during a 1961 Stanley Cup playoff game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

One of the most respected and most durable players in hockey, of any generation, Delvecchio died on Tuesday at age 93. The legend affectionately nicknamed “Fats” by his teammates is survived by his wife, Judy, and the couple’s five children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

From his first NHL appearance, March 25, 1951, at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium against the Montreal Canadiens, through his last, Nov. 4, 1973, in Atlanta against the Flames, Delvecchio played 1,550 regular-season games, all for the Red Wings, amassing 1,281 points (456 goals, 825 assists). He played another 121 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, scoring 104 points (35 goals, 69 assists).

Delvecchio was a Stanley Cup champion in 1952, 1954 and 1955, and three times was voted winner of the Lady Byng Trophy (1959, 1966, 1969), awarded to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.

It was on Aug. 25, 1977, that this nearly indestructible center was enshrined among the greatest in hockey, welcomed to the Hall of Fame in a class that included late defenseman Tim Horton and builders John “Bunny” Ahearne, Harold Ballard and Joseph Cattarinich.

“How often do you get to be in the Hall of Fame, let alone just play in the NHL?” Delvecchio wondered, reminded of the anniversary.

The humble superstar excused himself to park, then took his phone into a Detroit grocery store to turn back his clock “in the meat aisle, which I hit now and then.” He was delighted to revisit a bit of his career, fondly remembering his Hall of Fame induction and a remarkable career that took him there.

Delvecchio served as his team’s captain from 1962 until his retirement in 1973, following Gordie Howe with the “C” stitched on his winged-wheel sweater.

The 1953-54 Stanley Cup-champion Detroit Red Wings at Olympia Stadium. Bottom row, from left: trainer Carl Mattson, Bob Goldham, GM Jack Adams, captain Ted Lindsay, coach Tommy Ivan, Marty Pavelich, head scout John Mitchell. Second row: Dave Gatherum, Glen Skov, Gordie Howe, Red Kelly, Alex Delvecchio, Marcel Pronovost, Terry Sawchuk. Third row: trainer Lefty Wilson, Jim Peters, Tony Leswick, Gilles Dube, Keith Allen, Jim Hay. Top row: Earl Reibel, Benny Woit, Al Arbour, Bill Dineen, Metro Prystai, Johnny Wilson, publicist Fred Huber.

The native of Fort William, Ontario could hardly believe that he had made it to the NHL when he arrived. Just six years after having played organized hockey for the first time, Delvecchio was up with Detroit on March 25, 1951, filling in for the season’s final game with the Red Wings wanting to rest a few bodies for the playoffs.

He was back full-time a few games into the 1951-52 schedule, breaking in at the front end of a Red Wings dynasty, a team headlined by the Production Line of Howe, Sid Abel and Lindsay with the brilliant Terry Sawchuk in goal. Detroit won the Stanley Cup that season, Delvecchio’s first championship in any level of hockey, and twice more in his first four seasons.

The silky playmaker laughed when he was reminded that he just as easily could have wound up with the Canadiens, whose few-dollars sponsorship of his war-time Knights of Columbus Canadiens supplied the wool sweaters.

“I just never made the Canadiens’ big team,” he joked.

Happily, for Detroit.

Alex Delvecchio (10) tests Toronto goalie Ed Chadwick during a 1957 game at Maple Leaf Gardens. At left is Toronto’s Gerry James with Detroit’s Ted Lindsay in the background.

Delvecchio barely saw the ice his first few seasons with the Red Wings, given just a shift or two if the game was close.

His style of play had been reshaped in 1950-51 with the junior Oshawa Generals, coach and 1930s Red Wings forward Larry Aurie steering Delvecchio away from the rough stuff that made him a penalty-box regular.

“Larry told me I was no value to the Generals in the box,” he said. “And when I got up to Detroit, (general manager Jack) Adams said the same thing when I took a few chippy, foolish penalties. He told me if I wanted to stay up, I had to stay out of the box.”

Delvecchio was a player transformed, assessed just 383 penalty minutes in 1,550 regular-season games.

A statue of Alex Delvecchio is unveiled prior to the start of the Detroit Red Wings game at Joe Louis Arena on Oct. 16, 2008.

His durability was astonishing. Delvecchio was shelved for 22 games in 1956-57 with a broken ankle, then missed just 21 more in his next 16 seasons.

“I remember Sawchuk would get hurt – he’d get hit in the face with a puck and say, ‘There’s no way I’m going to sit out because someone is going to take my place and I may lose my job,’” Delvecchio said.

“That kind of stuck with me. I said, ‘I’ll play injured, to the best of my ability, until they kick me off the team.’ You kind of wanted to play hurt, or maybe the hurt wasn’t that bad.

“I look at the guys nowadays who get hurt or whatever you want to call it and are sitting out and I look at it like he’s got a hangnail or something and he gets three games or three weeks rest.”

On his 85th birthday, Gordie Howe (c.) is photographed with former linemates Alex Delvecchio (l.) and Ted Lindsay at Joe Louis Arena on March 31, 2013.

He chuckled, then qualified the comment.

“But it’s a whole different story nowadays. Years ago, once you were in the League, you wanted to stay there at all costs. You played come hell or high water. Now, these guys are skating nearly 12 months of the year. I remember we’d play the last game and you’d throw your skates aside and you wouldn’t look at them until training camp the following September.

“We’d intentionally put on 10, 12 pounds over the summer so you had something to lose in training camp and make it look good, make it look like you were really trying, I guess,” he said, laughing again.

Delvecchio endured two long, painful dips with Detroit, first in the late 1950s when Adams traded away Sawchuk, outstanding young goalie Glenn Hall, Lindsay, Kelly and promising youngster Johnny Bucyk, then a decade later at the start of what would be known as the Dead Wings era.

Alex Delvecchio behind the bench of the Detroit Red Wings during his 1970s stint as the team’s coach.

Loyal to a fault, he was convinced to coach the team from 1974-77, also doubling up as GM as the Red Wings clung to the hope that his sterling name would distract fans from the product on the ice. But he was too much of a gentleman for either job, taking every loss personally while he chugged antacid like it was water.

Delvecchio finally retired from the Red Wings organization in 1977. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame that year as much for his leadership and grace as for the 13 seasons he scored 20 or more times.

Until the end of his life, Delvecchio remained hugely popular in Detroit. The fan mail was still arriving; when he took a call in 2016, shoppers were stopping him for a word or an autograph in the meat aisle, politely interrupting his conversation, one woman even suggesting a better cut than what he had in his cart.

Daniel Delvecchio stands proudly in front of the statue of his grandfather, Alex, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on March 4, 2025. Daniel is the son of Ken Delvecchio, Alex’s eldest son.

Delvecchio said he planned to attend a dozen or so games that coming season at Joe Louis Arena, a fan of the NHL’s Original Six teams if few others.

He said he missed the demolished Olympia Stadium, his old home and one of hockey’s great barns, but added that he liked what he’d seen of the city’s still-rising new rink into which the Red Wings would move after one final season at the Joe.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the new place,” Delvecchio said of Little Caesars Arena, which would open in 2017.

And then Delvecchio laughed once more, setting off to finish his groceries.

“I just hope I’m still around to see it.”

Indeed he was, one of the greatest Red Wings of all time celebrated in a magnificent building where his enormous legend will live forever.

Top photo: Alex Delvecchio in a 1950-51 portrait with the major-junior Oshawa Generals, and during his 12 years as captain of the Detroit Red Wings.